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‘Breaking Bad’ Is Renewed for Its Final Episodes

By Dave Itzkoff August 14, 2011 9:50 pmAugust 14, 2011 9:50 pm

Robert Yager for The New York TimesBryan Cranston as Walter White on “Breaking Bad.”

Can good news ever occur in the life of Walter White without something equally devastating to even it out? On Sunday night, AMC clarified the uncertain future of “Breaking Bad,” its hit drama about that meth-cooking chemistry teacher, announcing that it has picked up the series for 16 additional episodes and that those segments will be the last installments of the series.

“It’s a funny irony,” Vince Gilligan, the “Breaking Bad” creator, said in a statement. “I’d hate to know the date of my own last day on earth, but I’m delighted to know what Walter White’s will be (episodically speaking). This is a great gift to me and to my wonderful writers. It’s knowledge which will allow us to properly build our story to a satisfying conclusion. Now, if we don’t manage to pull that off, we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves.”

This month, reportssurfaced that talks between the AMC cable channel and Sony Pictures Television, the studio that produces “Breaking Bad,” had turned acrimonious, and that the studio was shopping the series to other cable channels after AMC made an offer for a fifth season that would run only six to eight episodes. (The series is currently in its fourth season, which will run 13 episodes.)

On Sunday, AMC and Sony said that the 16 concluding episodes of “Breaking Bad” will go into production next year, though they did not immediately say when these episodes would be shown or over how many seasons they might be distributed.

In April, AMC found itself in the midst of another thorny renegotiation over another signature series, “Mad Men,” after its creator, Matthew Weiner, balked at a proposal to reduce its episode order and cast budget. The network eventually came to terms with Mr. Weiner, who promptly announced that the three coming seasons of “Mad Men” would bring that series to an end as well.

AMC’s portfolio of original programming also includes “The Walking Dead,” which recently lost its show runner, Frank Darabont, and “Hell on Wheels,” which, perhaps mercifully, does not make its debut until November.